18 December, 2012, London, UK: Guy Willner, Co-Founder and CEO of IXcellerate, Moscow’s premier carrier-neutral data centre, has just won Datacenter Dynamics’ Data Center Business Leader of the Year Award.
The DatacenterDynamics EMEA 6th Annual Awards is a prestigious event which recognises the very best innovation, leadership and ‘out of the box’ thinking in the data centre industry across the EMEA region. The Awards dinner was held in London on 13 December, gathering over 700 industry professionals to celebrate excellence across the industry.
Having co-founded IXEurope with Christophe de Buchet in 1999 and then sold to Equinix Inc in 2007, Guy Willner launched IDC-G in 2010 to bring together the leading carrier-neutral data centres in new and emerging markets around the globe, in an effort to increase communications between peers and promote the sharing of best practices. Recently in 2012, IXcellerate, of which Willner is CEO, received Series A funding from the International Finance Corporation and other investors to start Moscow’s premier co-location data centre. Phase One of IXcellerate’s Moscow One Data Centre is beginning operations this month and clients have begun to install equipment in the data hall. Additionally Guy is an investor and on the Board of Teraco Data Environments PTY of South Africa, which has seen it’s NAP Africa Internet exchange grow over 50% in the past year.
“It is also a great reward to see the business case of IXcellerate finally launched in one of the world’s biggest untapped markets. It is very satisfying to be recognised, not just me, but also my team in London and Moscow. Now, new challenges ahead!”
About IXcellerate
IXcellerate is a new datacenter operator co-founded by Guy Willner and Cliff Gauntlett (Former SVP of Golden Telecom). The project will encompass the construction and operation of a 6,200 square metre, carrier neutral data centre in Moscow set on a 15,000 square metre campus. The datacenter will be built over three phases, with the first 1000 square metres planned to be in operation in Q4 2012. IXcellerate is the Russian Alliance Member of the International Data Centre Group (IDC-G). See www.ixcellerate.com (stay connected on construction pictures and progress on the website or on Twitter @ixcellerate)